John Lennon and Yoko Ono Movie Underway

A movie exploring the “epic love story” of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is in the works, based on a script written by Oscar nominee Anthony McCarten.

The Hollywood Reporter provided some details of the project, saying that Universal Pictures is in negotiations with Michael De Luca Productions and Immersive Pictures over the rights. Ono is named as a producer, alongside McCarten, De Luca and Josh Bratman.

“The film project came about after Bratman lobbied Ono to bring the story of her relationship to the screen with De Luca,” the report said. “McCarten worked with all three to write the story on spec.”

Lennon and Ono are said to have met at a London art gallery in 1966, where the Beatles icon became fascinated with one of the artworks she had on display: a ladder that led to a canvas suspended from the ceiling, with a tiny word printed on it and a magnifying glass to allow it to be read.

"You're on this ladder – you feel like a fool, you could fall any minute – and you look through it and it just says 'yes,'" Lennon recalled in 1980. "Well, all the so-called avant-garde art at the time, and everything that was supposedly interesting, was all negative; this smash-the-piano-with-a-hammer, break-the-sculpture, boring, negative crap. It was all anti-, anti-, anti-. Anti-art, anti-establishment. And just that 'yes' made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails, instead of just walking out saying, 'I'm not gonna buy any of this crap.'"

That version of events has been disputed, however, with some saying the couple had met the previous year.

Lennon and Ono were married in March 1969 and staged a famous bed-in during their honeymoon. Even though they reportedly had a tumultuous and unusual relationship, the pair remained together until Lennon was shot dead in 1980. His killer, Mark Chapman, was recently refused parole for the 10th time.